


an elevated aim

by goshemily



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Laurel Wreaths, M/M, Sex, Sex Club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:23:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3258167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/pseuds/goshemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras’s eyes sweep over him and Grantaire fights the urge to bow his head. “I am less troubled by the will to rule than by the will to claim,” Enjolras says.</p><p>---</p><p>Or: Enjolras, the secret libertine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an elevated aim

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [harborshore](http://archiveofourown.org/users/harborshore) for the encouragement (this is all due to you, you know), and thank you to [Overnighter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Overnighter) and [Ark](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark) and [clenster](http://archiveofourown.org/users/clenster) for the enthusiasm, and thank you to [arriviste](http://archiveofourown.org/users/arriviste) for the much-needed hand-holding.

Grantaire had not expected in this place, amid the trappings of debauchery and attempts at ancient arts, to find anything of consequence. He was promised by bohemian companions a night of smoke and mirrors, a night of satisfied lusts as opiate to his less earthly and more unnamable desires.

Although he accounts himself a student of history and all its proverbs, its wisdom has been ill-articulated ashes on his tongue before this; now, his mouth is dry with other things. Having disclaimed his lessons, he did not expect flame beneath the stipulated smoke.

He did not expect golden curls.

He did not expect Enjolras, magnificent and leonine beneath a crown of laurel. He evokes wild things.

He _wakes_ wild things in Grantaire, desperate things; confronted thus, introduced to “one who has been here many times, and may induct you” by an unknowing friend, he does not know what to say.

Enjolras stares at him, dares him, head high and face implacable. Around them satyrs are poor shadows to his burnished Ares.

Grantaire can only ever prod when he must resist groveling. His gaze is steady and he wills his tone to mock. “So you are then a paragon, come among us, as ever I suspected; are you here to address at last the rumors of your divine birth, thus substantiated?”

“I am less interested in divine birth,” says Enjolras, his severity rather heightened by his costume than degraded by it, the clasp of his toga baring his strong arms, “than in divine right.”

“Who would gainsay you? Or is it that you trouble yourself, in claiming your rule?”

Enjolras’s eyes sweep over him and Grantaire fights the urge to bow his head. “I am less troubled by the will to rule than by the will to claim,” Enjolras says.

“What would you claim? Or declaim – that I think is more often in your line.”

“Surprised to find me here?” Enjolras is even now a statute, as calm as Grantaire is not.

There is fire in Grantaire’s veins, watching the firelight play in Enjolras’s hair. “I must confess it.”

“You call me a priest but you have never specified the god.”

“Have I needed to? Revolution is chaste, surely, and all-encompassing.”

Enjolras’s eyes flick sideways to note whether they are alone, the others occupied; even here, he does not forget himself. “It is a heated calling,” he says. “My blood is as quick as any man’s.”

Grantaire thinks of Enjolras laid upon a bed – or, in this garb, upon an alter – with the effects of his quickened blood made obvious. He thinks of Enjolras’s cock curved and flushed, awaiting worship, and finds he has to swallow. “So you look here for succor?”

“And often find release,” Enjolras says, and smiles.

It does not make him more human, not cast in this light.

“You are not dressed for it,” he says abruptly. He rakes Grantaire again. Disdainful hauteur; he resumes like an ermine robe the mantle that is his role.

Grantaire shrugs, never having fallen out of his. “I thought about it,” he says, and lifts the hand carrying his waistcoat and cravat. “I thought to remove propriety when I arrived, but had I known you would be here, I’d have tried with more rigor.” His shirt is untucked and gapes at the neck; for a moment he thinks Enjolras watches his throat, but no.

“I thought you admired the Greeks.”

“Like our Napoleon, they made no true pretense to democratic idealism. Like him, they retained slavery, for all their fine words; I like when men recognize their own hypocrisy and are straightforward about their sins.”

“No wonder you speak with relish of self-appointed kings.”

“Napoleon took the crown from the Pope’s own hands. I speak with relish of claiming what pleasure you will.”

“So we are back to that, and deification.” Enjolras touches his elbow, barely any pressure, and guides them from the entryway. There are few unoccupied couches; he leads them to stand against the wall nearest the fire. The room is draped in red, and the air feels close.

Grantaire is unmoored. He is not, apparently, to be abandoned, although around them bodies move with the kind of intent that would surely welcome Enjolras’s participation.

“Would you be subject, then, to men who call themselves gods?”

“Would you not have it so?” Always Grantaire aims to provoke, but he knows he is rarely so reckless as to ask a question so direct as this one. “You are apparently accounted a trusted libertine by the sensualists around us. It would seem you, too, know what you desire.”

Enjolras is not disconcerted. He speaks plainly. “I was not untutored, nor now am I unlearned; I have attended this club since I came to Paris. I found my curiosity awakened by what I read as a scholar, and sought instruction as a man; I found it, and then I found that knowing it, I was loathe to give it up. I wished to remain gratified. Desire is not in itself a sin, Grantaire.” His gaze burns, and Grantaire’s pulse responds, a traitor. Enjolras would notice, were he to measure Grantaire’s wrists with his strong hands.

“And self-gratification is not enough to satiate you, as it must be for lesser men?” The image blooms of Enjolras’s square palm wrapped around what must be his arresting cock, and it intertwines with the thought of his fingers testing Grantaire. Grantaire tries to ignore it, tries to keep the heat off his face, but he suspects he fails. They are too close to the fire for him to hide, too close for Enjolras to be anything but glowing, made molten bronze.

But “I would not be demoted in your esteem; I thought you called me a god” is all he says, voice steady.

Grantaire nods, in thrall.

“Then seek apotheosis. Wouldn’t you join me?” Enjolras asks, and his eyes are searching. Grantaire is a hunted thing and he cannot look away. “If making me a man would lessen me to you, I would not have it – but I _would_ have you join me on this pedestal.”

“Is it lonely?” Grantaire asks, scarcely able to breathe, although as ever he still can find his voice. “Or maybe you feel a draft; in those clothes, I wouldn’t wonder at it.”

This time Enjolras’s smile is more full. “The opposite,” he says. “But I worry you must be too warm, constricted by all your modern armor. You should have exercised a painter’s rights, as your fellows here do, and borrowed raiment from your models. Would you not be bared to the experience of all of this?” He gestures, and his hand encompasses the moans that Grantaire has tried to ignore, the dryads interlocked.

“Enjolras,” he says, “that was a truly awful pun.”

Enjolras laughs, and Grantaire forgets the unreality of the scene for how beautiful he is. “Yes,” he says, “it was terrible; but will it entice you to bed?”

“Me?”

“I do not pretend not to notice the way you look at me,” Enjolras says, serious again, as changeable as the sky. “I am glad to find that here at least we might find common ground.”

“Are you sure that you are well?” Grantaire asks, cannot help his shock. “Have any handmaidens put anything into your drink, have any Ganymedes offered you a draught of something you could not name?”

“Only good will, and I can name that well enough. Besides, it was a goddess who put Ganymede to sleep, and I would rather you awake, and attentive.”

“Then lead on, and I will attend.” As an initiate, as an acolyte, as a pilgrim. Grantaire feels his eyes grow round when Enjolras takes his hand as though it is an ordinary thing, and leads him from the common room. There are no couches open now, although Grantaire in walking behind Enjolras, admiring, suspects the wall would do.

Enjolras turns as though he knows all of Grantaire’s thoughts, and says, “You are slight enough, we might attempt it, but –” he pauses, as though there were anything he could say that would make Grantaire less willing. “If I am allowed to confess as well, then I would have you where we might be private. There are many things I want.”

“How do you hide this?” Grantaire asks, and they move down a short and well-appointed hall. Enjolras pushes open a door and they step into a bedroom where the candles are already lit. “How is your manner at meetings so different that we thought you pure?”

Enjolras lets go his hand, and walks him backward until Grantaire falls against the bed. “Virtue requires that we are good and just,” he says, and leans over Grantaire, beginning to unbutton his shirt. “Your definition of impiety simply lacks imagination.”

“I promise you, my imaginings are many and varied,” Grantaire says, and shrugs the shirt from his shoulders.

Enjolras is frank, tugging it from beneath him. “Have you thought of this?”

“More than once.”

“And what would you like?” The toga – more of a chiton, really, Enjolras showing his calves to anyone who wants to look – should be ridiculous in their surroundings, but the crown has not even slipped from his head. 

By most accounting, Grantaire is yet more covered, but it is Enjolras who is wholly in control. His bearing is regal. Even his feet are finely made in their Grecian sandals; now, he stands between Grantaire’s spread legs and puts his hands to Grantaire’s trousers.

“Well?”

“I would like to see more of you,” Grantaire says honestly.

Enjolras’s mouth quirks, wry. “Is that how you would ask?”

“I can do it more prettily.”

“If you want me divine, I think you might have to.”

Grantaire gasps, partly surprise but also delight. “You _like_ it!” he cries. “Don’t quote your revolutionary tracts to me, you _like_ to be worshipped!” He scrambles off the bed and kneels at Enjolras’s feet, finally lets himself bow his head. “In that case I will worship you.” He starts to unlace Enjolras’s sandals, putting aside all his questions for a less pressing time. There will be many nights that he is not in this dream world, and can pick apart what has so changed Enjolras that he would deign to allow this; for now, Grantaire draws the shoes from beneath his feet and pauses humble for more instruction. 

There is an expectant silence, and it takes him a moment to remember what Enjolras awaits; then he bows his head a little lower, heart lodged in his throat at his own audacity, at the almost-certain knowledge that Enjolras will say yes, and he whispers, “Please.”

“Please what?” Enjolras’s voice is kind, but it is as firm as Grantaire has ever heard him.

“Please fuck me. Please anything. Please tell me what you would like. Please –”

“That will do.” 

Enjolras lays a hand on his head, strokes through his hair. Grantaire stares fixedly at Enjolras’s delicate ankles and continues in his mind, _Please_. _Please do this_.

“Look at me.”

Grantaire looks up.

Enjolras’s eyes are dark. “Is this what you want?”

“You know it is.”

“Is this why you came here tonight?”

That is unfair, but Grantaire cannot turn, not when Enjolras’s hand could slip off, not when it could mean this ends. “You know me well enough to know I hoped for nothing but some momentary laughter; I have found more than I had a right to.”

“Let us see if we can give you some momentary joy,” Enjolras says, and raises him up.

Enjolras divests himself of the chiton, discarding it like it is nothing to be naked, and Grantaire stops talking. Enjolras’s body is imperial. He is in all parts finely made, elegant as Grantaire reviews him with artist’s eyes, but he is also opulent. He is unashamed under Grantaire’s gaze, his skin lush in the half-light, and he lets Grantaire study him. His cock is proud where it stands in hair of a darker gold, and Grantaire is unsurprised to find it huge; he looks at it and again thinks _Please_. Grantaire has never loved denial, and least tonight does he want to deny Enjolras anything it is in his power to give.

When Enjolras nods at Grantaire’s trousers, Grantaire starts to remove them and forgets his shoes, until they become tangled together and he has to sit down to undo them, humiliated. 

Enjolras cups his cheek, smiling, and his hand is warm. “I don’t think eagerness is anything to regret,” he says. He takes Grantaire’s clothes to put them aside, and some leaves fall out of Grantaire’s pocket.

When Enjolras picks them up, puzzled, Grantaire says, “I was not wholly unprepared. I thought if called to it, I could stick them in my hair and play a hapless maenad.”

“They were the female followers, I think.”

Grantaire squirms a little. “I thought if I were lucky enough to count myself lucky tonight, I wouldn’t want any man here to expect me to take a leading part.”

Enjolras still wears his crown. He drops Grantaire’s wrinkled leaves atop the clothes and comes back to him. He tilts Grantaire’s chin up, hand still warm, and says, “Whatever you want is fine.” His face is grave.

“You know what I want.” There is a lightness in the admission, although Grantaire wishes he could keep it back. 

Enjolras nods, and arranges Grantaire on his stomach on the bed; he takes oil from the side table. “You’ve done this before?”

“Yes.” Grantaire rests his head on his arms, and waits. This has always been something he loves.

Enjolras does not disappoint. He nudges Grantaire’s legs further apart and kneels between them, a solid presence. His hands move as graceful as they look, his fingers long and slender. If Grantaire had not now heard Enjolras has been to many of these parties, he would guess it from how much Enjolras seems to know. He prepares Grantaire for his cock as though this were a precious thing in itself, and not something to be rushed. 

Soon enough he has Grantaire rocking back against him, seeking more; the stretch is tantalizing, and Enjolras is thorough. When Grantaire fingers himself he has sometimes pretended it to be Enjolras, but now that he knows the reality, he doesn’t think he can ever return to such a pale imitation. He cranes his neck, and Enjolras leans forward to kiss him, a quieting gesture when all Grantaire wants is more. Enjolras kisses with intent, deeply, like an oath.

When Grantaire breaks for air, he finds he’s ready to be done with being slow. “Not all of us are immortal,” he says, “and at this rate I’ll die before you get your cock in me.”

“You are clothed with impudence, as with a cloak.” Enjolras does not seem displeased.

“It was not the Mycenæn king whom Achilles fucked,” Grantaire says, to keep from begging again.

“No, nor by whom he was himself, except you mean less literally.”

“I am always a literalist,” Grantaire says, solemn, and Enjolras laughs, his fingers crooking.

“No; but even so it is not a good comparison. You are more suited for languor than were the war-like Greeks.” He slows his hand, emphasis that is so wicked.

Grantaire pants, and tries not to urge him on. He thinks his body must give him away; he cannot help moving against Enjolras, although self-preservation demands he try. For Enjolras to know the depth of what he wants – “Ten years is not languorous?” he asks, and then throws back his head.

Enjolras grins. “I thought you might like that,” he says, and does it again. “And no; you are meant for a different end than theirs.” He goes quiet for a moment, caught either in the myths of the past or in the uncertainty of the future.

The end of the Amis is not opaque to Grantaire. He expects it; but unlike Cassandra, he would bring those for whom he cares a bit of pleasure first, if they will not heed the truths of the world. “Fuck me,” he says, “now,” and Enjolras is recalled to himself.

“Hardly the reverence of a true devotee,” he says, “but you find me in a benevolent mood.”

“I promise you, Enjolras, I will be devoted to what we do tonight, if we ever actually get to do it.”

Enjolras smacks his ass lightly, playful, and says, “Then get up.”

“How do you want me?”

“This is fine, if you’ll kneel.” 

Grantaire obliges, and can hardly believe what is happening. He rests his weight on his hands and knees, and feels Enjolras arrange himself behind.

He enters Grantaire, and Grantaire is glad Enjolras cannot see his face. He’s sure everything he wants is written there. He breathes deep.

Enjolras’s cock is hot within him, wide, insistent. Enjolras drapes himself over Grantaire’s back, mimics Grantaire’s posture, and lets Grantaire feel the length of him inside.

“Well?” he asks, his lips at Grantaire’s ear.

“Acceptable,” Grantaire says, “if you’ll move.”

Enjolras twists his hand in Grantaire’s hair and tugs lightly, admonishing, but Grantaire makes a sound low in his throat and he knows Enjolras hears. “Maybe I oughtn’t,” though Enjolras’s hips shift minutely, “just to punish you.”

Grantaire ignores this. “We will have to turn over, if you are to have a hand free to accommodate me,” he says. He won’t give up Enjolras’s fingers in his hair for anything, but “I’d like your balance solid, for the leverage.”

“Shall I not be tender, then?” Enjolras’s voice is rough.

“No.”

“You could yet accommodate yourself.”

“That would hardly be generous of you; I thought you were a man for equality, Enjolras.” His cock is even bigger than Grantaire anticipated. Against the feel, Grantaire can hardly move for pleasure, though he knows it will be doubled if Grantaire can bring himself to give them a rhythm.

“And _I_ thought I was supposed to play the god, and you the supplicant. I could leave you otherwise unsatisfied, and see if you can come from me alone.” Ever ready, Enjolras pulls out a little, and at Grantaire’s inadvertent noise he bears back in.

“Do not be a fool and learn by experience,” Grantaire warns, “meaning I will, and then where will you be? Too smug to ever come down to earth.” Everything is exquisite, and if Enjolras does not stop his mouth, Grantaire will speak, if only because the experience is too heady for any self-restraint.

“You have switched classics on me,” Enjolras says, and begins to fuck him in truth. “I am no barefoot philosopher.”

“Hardly,” Grantaire agrees, and arches. “You would not even remove your boots for me to polish.”

Enjolras twists his hand in Grantaire’s hair and it is a sparking pain, the perfect counterpoint. “Had it never occurred to you that you might while I yet wore them? Had you knelt then, in the Musain –” 

“As is your due?”

“As you might enjoy.” Enjolras tugs again.

Grantaire gasps, and acquiesces. “I probably would.”

“Ask again, and you might find me more amenable.” 

“Because desire is not a sin?” The sweat is slick between them.

“Because the whole duty of a good and honorable man is a complex thing. Sometimes it is to listen to the body as well as to the mind.” Enjolras sets his face against Grantaire’s neck then, and drives into him yet more heavily, every push a statement of will. He is balanced as a weight against Grantaire’s back, and his right arm does not waver. It is planted beside Grantaire unshakeable.

Gently, Grantaire moves his hand a little, and rubs his thumb over Enjolras’s knuckles. But he cannot wholly sustain his posture; he genuflects beneath Enjolras, rests his head on the coverlet, breathes into it and takes it in his teeth against the intensity of the feeling.

“Do you wish to be silent?” Enjolras asks, and releases Grantaire’s curls; he offers his celestial fingers to suck instead, and Grantaire is grateful. He has given too much away tonight already.

For the space of a caesura there are no words between them. Grantaire closes his eyes to better taste Enjolras in his mouth, and to better feel the whole hard length of him. Enjolras strokes against his tongue, commanding, mimic to their other act; he maps the inside of Grantaire’s cheek like an avowal of what they will yet try.

Then “Oh,” he says, and withdraws his hand, although he pauses to rub his thumb across Grantaire’s lips before leaving him bereft.

“What,” Grantaire can barely say.

Enjolras laughs a little, and the sound shakes through Grantaire. He has never heard Enjolras so easy before tonight. “My wreath fell over my eye,” he says, “and startled me.” He puts it uncaring beside them, renounces it like he did their clothes, an unimportant part of what they enact.

“You lose the mark of office readily,” Grantaire manages, turning his head to the glossy green vivid against the white of the bed.

“I do,” Enjolras agrees, and fucks him harder. “There is a difference between you according me the status and me choosing to keep it for myself once the crown is lost.”

“You will not say you are of the people, then, and count it true because the middle class has rendered your leaves in gold?”

“Do they appear gold to you?” Enjolras asks. “I come here because some nights I am made for less a burghers’ celebration than a bacchanal.”

“You were never made for their limited minds. It is one of the reasons you tower.” Abruptly, Grantaire bites the coverlet again.

At that, Enjolras pulls fully out. He’s flipped Grantaire over before Grantaire can wonder what it means, and confronted with his face, Grantaire forgets to look away.

“You act like I don’t know how you regard me,” Enjolras says. “I assure you that I do.” He runs the flat of a finger over Grantaire’s rim, quick as breath, and then he pushes his cock in again, raises Grantaire’s hips a little with his large and fine-boned hands.

He is arrayed in splendor above Grantaire. The play of light and shadow on his body only makes him more substantial, more a timeless hero and Grantaire his vassal and his vessel. Grantaire receives Enjolras as though it is his only duty, his only joy. He curves so that they meet in the way that will bring most pleasure to them both.

Finally, Enjolras puts a hand around him. Grantaire is incapable of it. He is all sensation. There is no slowness for them now, no surcease; they drive on, and when Enjolras comes hot and thick inside him, Grantaire follows.

Still joined, Enjolras bends to kiss Grantaire, and this of everything is too much. Grantaire stops him with a hand that he could not lift a moment ago. “This was all you promised,” he says.

“Something fleeting?”

“Yes.”

“The house is accustomed to parties that last long; and also to parties who, in lasting long, would recover, and reconvene.”

Grantaire wants to smile at the joke, but he must know. Enjolras’s face is too serene, beholding him. “Meaning?”

“If you would rest a little here, we do not need to be done. Or if you would go back to my rooms, we can do that as well.”

“Am I so changed, that now you tolerate my company? Is there some spell laid on you when you enter here, that makes all things possible?”

“All things _are_ possible, Grantaire.” Enjolras pulls out, careful, and bends to lick the come from Grantaire’s stomach. Grantaire watches his yellow head, and then Enjolras looks up to meet his eyes. “And it is not that you are changed, so much as that the way you perceive me is. I am made of many parts.” He resumes his task.

Grantaire cannot help himself. He begins to laugh.

Enjolras grins against his skin.

“Shall I give you my cloak?” Grantaire asks. “I’ll exchange it for yours.”

“No,” Enjolras says, and moves to kiss him again. “I’d rather share.”

When later and at last they sleep, Grantaire rests in the crook of his arm.

**Author's Note:**

> I shouldn't be surprised I wrote this fic, considering I grew up looking at [this](http://art.famsf.org/wreath-19677) every few weeks.
> 
> The title is from [_The Symposium_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_%28Plato%29), when Alcibiades [quotes Socrates disdaining his love](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1600/1600-h/1600-h.htm):
> 
>      “Alcibiades, my friend, you have indeed an elevated aim if what you say is true, and if there really is in me any power by which you may become better; truly you must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any which I see in you.”
> 
> On the night he professed his love and found it unrequited, Alcibiades exchanged his warm cloak for the threadbare one Socrates wore. That is what Grantaire references (and in some ways expects) at the end. Earlier, when he tells Enjolras not to learn by experience, he echoes Alcibiades’s explicit warning against loving Socrates. Enjolras knows the book too, of course, and he quotes it as well; Alcibiades says that Socrates’s wisdom extends “to the whole duty of a good and honorable man.”
> 
> They also reference [_The Iliad_](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16452/16452-h/16452-h.htm), which besides covering a ten year war has a lot to say about Achilles hating Agamemnon:
> 
>      Achilles eyed him with a frown, and spake.  
> Ah! clothed with impudence as with a cloak,  
> And full of subtlety, who, thinkest thou -  
> What Grecian here will serve thee, or for thee  
> Wage covert war, or open? 
> 
> Underlying all their jokes is that the Amis hope to dethrone Louis Philippe, who [according to Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Monarchy) declared himself ‘King of the French’ rather than ‘King of France’ so as to emphasize “the popular origins of his reign.” That is what Grantaire alludes to when he asks whether Enjolras will buy a crown with bourgeoisie gold.
> 
> Probably the only thing really worth explaining here is that [arriviste](http://archiveofourown.org/users/arriviste) is extremely kind, and when I was freaking out about how I know nothing about 1832 or what kind of place a libertine Enjolras might frequent - or how the hell everyone would have a proper costume (although the thought of Enjolras sewing his own chiton out of a sheet is totally alluring, his head bent over his stitching and his mind on what the night might bring) - she told me about the plethora of classical scenes painted in the era. Painters’ props, she said, would be readily available for use, particularly by the kind of louche and educated types likely to frequent a club like this. Presumably, it is from such connections that Grantaire obtained an invitation. :D


End file.
